Monthly Report (for June, July, August) August 31, 1951

[1] In his February 2, 1951, report, Mitchell presented the legislative picture in the House and Senate. But until he could remove the filibuster roadblock, passage of civil rights legislation was nothing but a dream. His January 21, 1951, revised report to Walter White on the “Status of Civil Rights Legislation in the 82nd Congress” reinforced his concern about the comprehensive picture:

To date, 40 bills and two resolutions on Civil Rights have been introduced in the House. These include three worthless compromise measures offered by Congressmen Hayes of Arkansas and Rogers of Florida.

In the Senate, there are seven civil rights bills and three resolutions on this subject. Senator Lehman and others have introduced an anti-filibuster resolution which is, of course, the key to passing Civil Rights legislation in the Senate.

The bills introduced in the House include four submitted to Congress by the Department of Justice. They are H.R. 28, the Anti-Lynching Bill; H.R. 29, the Omnibus Civil Rights Bill; H.R. 1320, which would eliminate the Poll Tax, and a new Bill, H.R. 2118. H.R. 2118 proposed to amend Sections 1581, 1583, and 1584 of Title 18, U.S. Code, so as to prohibit attempts to commit the offenses therein proscribed (slavery and peonage). All of these bills have been introduced in the House. On June 25, Senator Humphrey will introduce these in the Senate.

It is important to note that five FEPC bills have been introduced in the House. However, their fate is sealed because they have been referred to the Labor Committee headed by Barden of North Carolina. The Senate Bill would be given friendly committee consideration, but there is the filibuster hurdle to be overcome.

Other Civil Rights legislation proposed includes Abolition of Segregation on Common Carriers, no discrimination in the National Health Insurance Program, no discrimination in Educational Finance, Fair Housing Practices, and Equal Rights Act for the District of Columbia.

Congressman Clifford Case of New Jersey and Franck Havenner of California have introduced bills to protect members of the Armed Services against assault and other violence at the hands of civilians or peace officers. A similar bill is being prepared for introduction in the Senate. (6/21/51 memorandum to Walter White, in NAACP WB-163, DLC)

See 10/4, 11/5, 11/30, and 12/28/51; “Still No FEPC,” editorial, Crisis 58 (June-July 1951): 395; Report of the Secretary for September 1951, EC; Mitchell, “These Are the Issues,” Crisis 59 (October 1952:): 483–86; and Watson, Lion in the Lobby 166–70.

[2] Pressing Mitchell to seek changes in the cloture rule was the fact that, as he reported to Walter White, forty civil rights bills and two resolutions had been introduced in the House. They included four submitted by the Department of Justice. They were H.R. 28, the Antilynching bill; H.R. 29, the Omnibus Civil Rights bill; H.R. 1320, to eliminate the poll tax; and a new bill, H.R. 2118, to amend Sections 1581, 1583, and 1584 of Title 18, U.S. Code, which barred slavery and peonage. He said Senator Humphrey would introduce these bills in the Senate. Mitchell memorandum, 6/21/51, to White, NAACP WB-163, DLC.

[3] See 10/4, 11/5, 12/5, and 12/28/51 reports for his subsequent efforts in this struggle.

[4] Drawing on a speech by Robert C. Weaver at the National Conference on Discrimination in Housing, on May 29, 1952, Walter White noted for the NAACP board that between 1935 and 1950, though approximately 2,761,000 dwelling units were built under the FHA insurance program, no more that 50,000 of them were available to nonwhites. White memorandum, 6/3/52, to NAACP board, 6/9/52, MP. See also statement of the Southern Regional Council on “Blighted Housing and Bomb Violence” in Report of the Secretary for May, 6/9/52, EC. See also 3/5, 4/4, 12/5, and 12/28/51; in appendix 1, this vol., 2/21/51; Crosby, “America’s Segregated Cities,” Negro Digest 9 (August 1951): 82–94.

[5] See 3/5, 4/4, 12/5, and 12/28/51; amendments sought by Mitchell before the Senate Committee on Banking and Currency, 2/20/51, Hearing 477–81; Minutes, 9/10/51, EC.

[6] 2/20/51, Hearings 477–81; and Berry, 2/20/51, Hearings 481–505. S. 349 was enacted as the Defense Housing and Community Facility and Services Act of 1951, which Truman signed on September 1, 1951. The law authorized $50,000,000 for government-constructed defense housing, set aside $1.5 billion in FHA mortgage insurance for privately financed housing in defense areas, and extended the VA direct loan program to July 1, 1953. Congress and the Nation 483–484.

[7] Defense Housing and Community Facilities Development Act of 1951. Report of the Committee on Banking and Currency, S. 349, 3/21/51, 82nd Cong., 1st sess. S. Rpts. v. 2, 41. See 12/28/51 for expanded comments on the committee’s report.

[8] But, the NAACP would insist, the policy set forth by Raymond Foley, HHFA administrator, in a letter of 11/26/51 to Multer clearly permitted continued segregation. See also 2/6/51.

[9] On August 15, 1951, the House passed S. 349 in substantially the same form as the Senate had approved it. Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report 8/17/51, 1231–32; the House agreed to the conference report on August 21. Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report 8/24/51, 1268.

[10] Mitchell said the real reason for Multer’s opposition was an off-the-record agreement among members of Congress that southern supporters of the bill should not be “embarrassed” by having to vote for it with favorable language on racial matters included. NAACP press release, 8/16/51, NAACP II: A-208, DLC. See also 12/28/51.

[11] Mitchell recommended to Truman that he issue “to the responsible Federal agencies an Executive Order governing the administration of Titles II and III of the Defense Housing and Communities Facilities Act of 1951” that would be designed to end the glaring discrimination problems in the federal housing program. Minutes, 9/1/51, EC.

[12] Mitchell was equally forceful in expressing the NAACP’s concerns about the simple need for the federal government to provide an adequate supply of public housing. A resolution adopted by the NAACP board on May 14, 1951, asserted that “public housing holds out the greatest promise of changing the pattern of discrimination and segregation which means inequality and divisiveness and injustice.” Copy of resolution in NAACP II: A-308, DLC. On June 11, 1951, he issued the following statement:

The situation now is that the Senate has passed a housing bill which authorizes the construction of 35,000 public housing units a year for the next four years. However, when that measure was voted on in the Senate, Senator Lehman and a number of other liberal Senators voted against the provision requiring 35,000 units a year because the adoption of that provision had the effect of striking out another provision which would have authorized 130,000 units a year.

In other words, incorporation of this amendment which was offered by Senator Knowland had the effect to reducing the number of units which were authorized in the bill. That situation is further complicated by the fact that the man who offered the original provision in the bill providing for 130,000 units was Senator Maybank of South Carolina. He, of course, has served notice that he will make a motion to strike out the 130,000 unit provision because the Supreme Court had ruled there must be no segregation. However, when he offered his proposed amendment, Senator Knowland objected to it and thereafter Knowland made his motion to ask for the 35,000 units and that is why it is so very complicated.

There are no units of public housing authorized by the bill passed by the House. For that reason, the measure must go to a conference between the House and Senate. A few days ago, a motion was made for the appointment of a Conference Committee. There was an objection, so the House members were not appointed. However, inevitably there will be a Conference Committee appointed and inevitably some kind of bill will be passed. A fight will be on as to whether the House conferees will agree to the Senate authorization of 35,000 or whether they will insist on a House version of no units at all. Re: Clarence Mitchell’s statement on housing (via long distance), June 11 [1951], NAACP II: A-316, DLC.

At its meeting in May, the NAACP board deplored the House’s limiting the number of public housing units that would be constructed in the fiscal year beginning July 1, 1951, to 5,000. Subsequently, the number was increased to 50,000. Copy of Minutes, 5/14/51; NAACP press release, 8/16/51, both in NAACP II: A-308, DLC.

[13] On July 1, 1951, General Ridgway received a message from the Department of the Army approving “deactivation of the 24th Infantry and your general plan of integration of Negroes into all units (with the temporary exception of the 40th and 45th Divisions).” MacGregor, Integration of the Armed Forces, 444.

See 3/5/51, where Mitchell reported on the introduction of an amendment to S. 1, the UMT bill, and on the conference of the sponsors with DOD officials.

[14] See also, among others, 11/5 and 12/28/51; materials in NAACP II: A-656, DLC.

[15] Mitchell reported:

Protection for members of the Armed Services against assaults and other violence is provided in two bills, H.R. 4301 and H.R. 4442 in the House. Senator Lehman and others will introduce a similar bill in the Senate.

H.R. 4301 was introduced by Congressman Franck Havenner (D., Cal.), May 31, 1951. H.R. 4442 was introduced by Congressman Clifford Case (R., N.J.), June 13, 1951.

The proposed legislation extends to members of the Armed Services the protection given to members of the Coast Guard and other Federal officials under sections 1114 and 111 of title 18, U.S. Code. These sections of the U.S. Code impose heavy fines and other penalties on persons who commit stated offenses against Federal officers.

In March, when the Universal Military Training Legislation was before the Senate, the NAACP sponsored an anti-violence amendment offered by Senator Herbert Lehman (D., N.Y.).

In April, when this legislation reached the House for action, the amendment was sponsored by Congressman Franck Havenner. On both occasions, the anti-violence amendents were defeated. Many members said, however, that they would support it as separate legislation.

Mrs. Anna M. Rosenberg, Assistant to the secretary of Defense, has assured the Director of the Washington Bureau that the Department of Defense will support the legislation. The Department of Defense stated in a letter to the Director, “There has been no change in our belief that such a bill is desirable to extend to Army, Navy, and Air Force officers and enlisted men the same type of protection that is afforded by law to other classes of Federal officers.” (7/25/51, newsletter, MP)

[16] It is not clear whether the luncheon was the July 5 meeting with AEC officials that Mitchell reported on in a July 16, 1951, memorandum.. However, he stated that at the July 5 meeting, discussion also involved protecting from dismissal any AEC employee who filed a lawsuit challenging segregation at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Mitchell memorandum to Thurgood Marshall, 7/16/51, NAACP WB-8, DLC. See also 2/5/51 and other references cited there.

[17] At the bottom of the “Suggested Agenda” for the September 17 meeting was the notation that the meeting was actually held December 14, 1951. NAACP WB-8, DLC. Mitchell noted on the agenda that he had included an excerpt from the 1951 Senate Hearings on the Defense Housing Act, S. 349, the full report of which can be found in 2/20/51, Hearings 477–81. For Mitchell’s earlier notes on his activities related to the hearings on the Defense Housing Act, see 3/5 and 4/4/51 reports. See also 2/2, 3/5, 5/3, 8/31, and 12/28/51.

Mitchell actually visited South Carolina on September 17, but according to the memorandum he submitted to Thurgood Marshall, he did so to collect evidence for proposed legal action challenging job discrimination at the AEC’s Savannah River works. Based on the information Mitchell had provided, Constance Baker Motley, a member of Marshall’s legal staff, said it appeared that the du Pont Company had a closed-shop agreement with the unions involved. Such agreements, she said, violated the Labor-Management Relations Act of  (the Taft-Hartley Act) and therefore could only have been oral agreements. Mitchell’s memorandum, 9/20/51, and Motley’s analysis of 11/28/51 are in NAACP WB-8, DLC.

[18] See Mitchell’s 7/16/51 memorandum to Marshall informing him of his discussion with AEC officials about possible lawsuits; see also his 9/20/51 memorandum on “Proposed Legal Action at Savannah River Works of Atomic Energy Commission.” Marshall evidently assigned the matter to Constance Baker Motley of his staff. See her memorandum of 11/28/51 to Mitchell analyzing data gathered by him on September 17 on AEC discrimination in South Carolina. These materials, as well as others from the NUL regarding similar problems in the tricity area of Pasco-Kennewick-Richland (in Washington State), are in NAACP WB-8, DLC. See 12/4 and 12/21/50, 2/2, 3/5, and 5/3/51 reports for earlier developments.

[19] See 11/5 and 12/28/51, 5/8, 6/5, and 12/31/52; in appendix 1, this vol., newsletter, 5/28/52, and 7/52.

[20] See Congressional Quarterly 1951; Watson, Lion in the Lobby 207; materials in NAACP WB-185, DLC.

[21] See, among others, 5/3 and 12/28/51.

[22] Both the NAACP and the National Council for a Permanent FEPC marked the tenth anniversary of Roosevelt’s wartime FEPC by noting that June 25, the first anniversary of the start of the Korean War, was also a time to assess the impact of the continuing problem of racial discrimination in employment. See materials in NAACP II: A-257, DLC.

[23] See also, among others, 5/3/51.

[24] See 2/2 and 5/3/51.

[25] See report on other AEC problems above.

[26] See 12/28/51.

[27] See also, among others, 3/3/50, 5/3, 6/4, and 12/28/51.

[28] This battle was resumed formally on April 27, 1951, when Mitchell wrote fifteen members of Congress to express his disappointment that he had learned H.J. Res. 19, the revived Lodge-Gossett resolution, seemed to have the approval of a subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee. He explained that the NAACP had consistently opposed the measure because it would increase the influence of southern states in national elections. The letter and other materials are in the “Lodge-Gossett” folder, NAACP WB-126, DLC.

A companion report by Mitchell stated:

Congressman Ed Gossett of Texas is leaving the House of Representatives on July 31. As a going away present, the members of the House Judiciary Committee reported out (by voice vote [where votes were not recorded], of course) his anti-Negro and anti-Semitic H.J. Res. 19.

This Resolution abolished the electoral college in national elections, but does not penalize southern states for denying the ballot to colored voters. The net effect would be to give the South greater power in national elections.

The NAACP worked to defeat this measure in the 81st Congress and won by a vote of 210 to 134. As soon as the 82nd Congress got started, Gossett was right back with his proposal.

He said himself that, if it becomes law, the major parties would not have to include FEPC in their platforms to win votes in Harlem. He also said that it would reduce the influence of New York Jews in national elections.

It would be a good idea to ask the following members of the House Rules Committee to vote against H.J. Res. 19 when it comes before that group:

Congressman Hugh B. Mitchell
Congressman James J. Delaney
Congressman Ray J. Madden
Congressman Adolph J. Sabath
Congressman Leo E. Allen
Congressman Clarence J. Brown
Congressman Henry J. Latham
Congressman Harris Ellsworth

Also, let your Congressman know that you want him to oppose it if it reaches the floor.

(Newsletter, 7/25/51, MP; for a companion report, see 5/29/51 in appendix 1, this vol.)

For Mitchell’s summary of the first phase of this struggle, see 12/21/50; in appendix 1, this vol., 2/50, 5/29/51.

[29] The violence erupted on July 6, 1951, when the Chickland Club on Capitol Heights in Prince Georges County, Maryland, just over the border of the District of Columbia, opened on a nonsegregated basis. It involved two near-riots by a mob of five hundred angry whites, as well as three fires, apparently set by arsonists. The Washington, D.C., branch of the NAACP and the Maryland State Conference of NAACP Branches charged that the Capitol Heights and Prince Georges County police did nothing to end the violence until late into the night, after patrons had left the club. In a letter to the Washington Post Mitchell charged that the club owner “was forced to bow to mob rule.” “What is there to stop the same elements from closing a hardware store, a day nursery or even a church?” he asked. Clippings from the Washington Post (dated only “7/51”), clippings from other newspapers, and Mitchell’s letter to the Post (undated) are in the folder Mob Violence, Brutality, NAACP IX: 42, DLC.

[30] The report, dated July 3, 1951, and provided by the Birmingham NAACP branch, was as follows:

Through 1948, peak of the Dixiecrat Revolt in the South and the Mid-Year of 1951, there were listed 52 Negro citizens in Alabama killed by law enforcement officers. This list may not be complete because there was no scientific way to keep a true listing of all the violence in this area. But those police-slayings listed in this report, taken from newspaper clippings and NAACP reports, is fairly accurate.

Of this 52 police-slayings,  were in the City of Birmingham. In another view, 35 of these 52 police-caused deaths were in Jefferson County or the Birmingham area. All 14 of the police-killings listed for 1948 were in Jefferson County. This was the year the Dixiecrat Revolt was organized in July of 1948 at the City Auditorium one hot Saturday.

Most of these slayings by Law Enforcement Officers were ruled “justifiable homicide.” In Birmingham, a police officer was indicted, tried and freed by a jury in 1949. In 1948 a Negro slew a deputy sheriff and in turn was killed by sheriff deputies.

Presumably, there has not been a careful study made of this area of violence over the past four years.

This report is hardly more than [a] loose listing of those reported cases of violent deaths in which law enforcement officers have been involved. (NAACP II: A-656, DLC.)

Another report, “Mob Violence, Lawlessness and Law Enforcement,” stated that “there was no decline during 1950 from the high level of racial violence noted in 1949. While there were no killings which fell within the technical definition of deaths by lynching as compared with three lynchings in 1949 and one in 1948, there were nine attempted lynchings and a large number of other forms of violence stemming from racial or religious bigotry.” The organized effort to get legal action to end this violence was led by Ruby Hurley, NAACP southeast regional coordinator, whose office was then in Birmingham.

At the national level, the legal department, led by Thurgood Marshall as special counsel, handled these complaints. As Mitchell said to Marshall, “Where questions or problems to be referred to the Justice Department do not involve legal technical problems, I shall prepare correspondence for your signature and send it to New York.” Mitchell’s goal was to avoid duplication of action. Mitchell’s letter to Marshall, 7/23/51, NAACP WB-189, DLC. See also “Minutes of May 15, 1952, Meeting at Birmingham to Discuss Ways of Reducing Violence in the South Arising from Racial and Religious Tension,” and other materials in NAACP WB-189, DLC.

This violence was the newest form in the South, which caused the NAACP to continue pushing for antilynching legislation in Congress and other protections through the Department of Justice. See also, for example, 5/8/52.

[31] See the headnote on the Struggle to End Jim Crow Travel, vol. III.

[32] Mitchell came to the conclusion that a lawsuit was the only remaining alternative to getting the local D.C. government to end segregation at the playgrounds after Milo F. Christiansen wrote to inform him that the Recreation Board’s policy was “to make every possible and realistic effort toward the removal of racial segregation in public recreation in such sequence and at such rate of progression as may be consistent with the public interest, public order and effective administration.” Mitchell forwarded a copy of the letter to Robert Carter, NAACP assistant special counsel, with the recommendation that “it seems time that we entered a lawsuit against the Board.” Next, he organized a meeting of interested D.C. residents at the Washington bureau to plan the lawsuit. Christiansensen’s letter to Mitchell, 5/3/51, Mitchell’s letter to Carter, 5/8/51, and other materials are in NAACP IX: 226, DLC.

[33] A copy of the letter of 7/19/51 is in NAACP WB-59, DLC